Pack Bond
by WeeLittleBeastie
Summary: Barry doesn't work directly with the raptors often, but he's spent months studying their behavior, watching how they interact with each other, with Owen, with their keepers. Grady has a bond with them that's unique, and Barry's told him more than once that they have a grudging respect for him. When Blue nudges his cheek, he thinks maybe it's more.


"You look at that sky one more time and I will make you stand in it."

Owen's jibe is playful, but Barry can tell he's getting annoyed at his partner's inattention. He's not looking at the other man, his focus on the pack of raptors below the catwalk. Four pairs of lethally intelligent yellow eyes are locked on him, waiting for instructions.

Barry sighs and gestures toward the thunderheads building above them. "You know how the weather works here. One moment it will be sunshine and a light breeze and the next we'll be scrambling for the Ark." He glances down at the raptors; Blue has her head tilted, like she's listening to their conversation. "I know you don't want to, but we need to wrap up."

"Not yet." And there's that tone, stubborn determination bordering on petulance, that makes Barry want to pull out his hair. "It's a good day, Barry. I'm not bailing early for a little rain."

"A little…" he throws his hands up in defeat and retreats back down the catwalk, muttering about stubborn bastards. Owen grins, but his full attention is back on his raptor charges. They haven't moved, attention fixed on him, and he feels a little thrill roll down his spine. Progress. Finally, after months, they're making progress.

He feels the rumble of thunder, and Delta's attention wavers as she looks up at the sky and shakes her head. Owen clicks his tongue to bring her back, feels her eyes slide back to him, calculating. Not cold; he raised them, knows their faces are capable of a surprising range of expression. There's a look there they reserve only for him. Barry thinks they respect him, not as an equal, but in his own right. He's not sure if he agrees, but he feels honored that they regard him differently at all.

The thunder's getting louder, and he can see the lightning building every time it throws the raptors into sharp relief. They're getting restless, too, shifting their weight and purling at one another. Blue turns her head to look in the direction of their concrete shelter and Owen sighs, lowering one hand to reach into the bucket and pick out a frozen rat, tossing toward Blue and going for another.

And the world explodes.

There are protocols. Things like "don't send away the security detail assigned to the raptor pen", or "don't stand on the conductive metal catwalk during a thunderstorm just because you're stubborn (all right so that might be paraphrasing)". These are protocols Owen Grady likes to ignore.

The security Barry understands, at least in part. Some of them are unseasoned and have a tendency to be trigger-happy, and if they lose their cool and shoot a raptor, Owen's fragile trust with the animals is ruined. He allows them, when Hoskins or Ms. Dearing or the feeders are around, but when it's just him and Barry, he sends them to wait across the compound, and they do it without complaint because most of them don't really want to risk being lunch.

He sees the lightning, hears a sound like a gunshot and the raptors shriek, and it's like watching a slow-motion replay as Owen goes boneless and topples over the catwalk into the enclosure twenty feet below. Barry shouts, rousing the security guards sitting nearby, screaming at them to call an ambulance as he scales the ladder to the upper walkway as fast as he can.

He'd joked about it once, that if ever there was a way to go, getting taken out by his pack of raptors would be it. Barry had thought then that there was more than a little honesty in the statement, but had written it off because only a crazy person would want to be raptor chow. And Owen doesn't have a death wish, even though his line of work might make it seem like he does.

He's lying in the dirt, unconscious but still breathing, albeit in fits and starts. One leg is twisted at a severe angle and there's blood spreading along the leg of his pants, trickling from the ear he can see. Barry's eyes dart to the four predatory shadows circling and his heart seizes in his chest as he watches the raptors emerge from the shadows.

They're silent, graceful, long necks thrown out in curiosity toward the intruder in their pen. Blue takes point, snapping at Delta as the smaller raptor tries to dart forward. Delta's impulsive, younger and less experienced. Blue is the careful one. She plans, observes, calculates. Barry can almost see the wheels turning in her head. He notes the security filing onto the opposite catwalk, quietly as they can. Blue notices them, hisses once in warning, turns back to Owen. Her head is cocked to one side, listening to his shallow respirations.

He can't breathe as she leans down, over Owen, and sniffs audibly. First at his face, then his vest. She stops where his leg is bleeding, licks him tentatively, like she's tasting, purls low in her chest and pushes at his torso with her snout.

Barry doesn't work directly with the raptors often, but he's spent months studying their behavior, watching how they interact with each other, with Owen, with their keepers. Grady has a bond with them that's unique, and Barry's told him more than once that they have a grudging respect for him.

When Blue nudges his cheek and whistles quietly through her nose, he thinks maybe it's more than that.

Raptors are apex predators, cunning and lethal and intelligent. He knows from the years of study conducted with the first raptors, and from observing these four, that they're social and fiercely loyal to pack structures. Their family bonds are similar to that of wolves, which he's studied for years; same structural hierarchy, same teamwork mentality.

Same protective nature over their own.

The realization dawns on him, and things click into place. The seeming leap in progress over the last few days, the sudden tip in the balance, the increasingly coordinated maneuvers they're performing with the raptors. Owen thought it was dumb luck. Barry argued it was more. Now he knows he was right.

Blue's eyes are on the security detail. One of them raises his weapon, just a fraction of an inch. She's felt it once before, in the very early stages of training. It had taken Owen weeks to earn that trust back. She knows what a stun rifle is now, though, and she shrieks, raises her forepaws, talons spread. Barry holds out a hand to stop the guy. "Don't shoot!" he yells. "Wait a minute, don't shoot!"

Blue hisses, takes a step back and lowers her body over Owen so that he's out of view of the guards on the catwalk. The other three close ranks, circling their beta. Barry is enthralled. "They're protecting him."

They need to get Owen out, and get him help. His leg is badly broken, he doesn't know how badly he's been hurt by the lightning strike, and there may be other injuries from the fall that they can't see. But they can't shoot the raptors, and they can't enter the enclosure with the raptors present. Barry doubts they'll get them to leave the paddock if they're protecting Owen like a pack member.

The sky breaks open suddenly, dumping rain in sheets, and Blue shakes her head and chatters at the others. And Barry prays as she reaches down, tenderly, and seizes Owen by the collar of his vest.

Usually when it rains, they let the raptors into the concrete stable at the end of their paddock. Sometimes though, when the forecast is for short showers, the raptors will simply huddle under the overhang by the gate. If they take him there, close enough, Barry might be able to reach him. He signals two of the security guards to follow him and quickly runs back across the catwalk and down the ladder to the ground.

Sure enough, Blue pulls an unconscious Owen after her under the overhang, hunkering down with the others to wait out the storm. When she sees Barry she rises to her full height, bends her neck back like an 's', and screams, tail lashing. It's a threat, a serious one, and it rattles him deeply, but he slams the button on the gate anyway, raises the gate just enough, and signals the security guard above, who abruptly starts banging the bucket on the rails of the catwalk.

It's a shitty distraction, but he's desperate, and for a split second Blue's attention is elsewhere. It's enough. He throws his hands out, catches Owen by one arm, and drags him backward under the gate just as a security guard slams the button to close it and four livid raptor bodies slam screaming into the steel latticework.

The ambulance arrives then, unleashing a team of EMT's who shoulder Barry aside to work on Owen. He can translate most of the medical jargon; Owen's heart is beating erratically, his left tibia has snapped and part of it is pushing through the skin, his pupils are unequal and sluggish to respond. They're not sure if there's any spinal damage from the strike or the fall but they strap him to a backboard and put a collar on him before they load him onto a stretcher and wheel him toward the ambulance. They don't say anything when Barry climbs in after them. He thinks he hears Blue whimper just before they shut the door.

He hurts, everywhere, and that's confusing, because if he's hurting then he's not eaten. And if he's not eaten he can assume that's because his raptors are either dead or were stunned into oblivion and will never ever trust him again. And now he's angry and hurting, and that's enough incentive for him to open his eyes.

He's in the trauma center, there's sunlight streaming through a skylight made of reinforced glass, and there are tubes and wires and God knows what else creeping out from under the blankets. Barry's sitting next to the bed, the chair rocked back on two legs and his feet resting on the footboard. He's dozing, but one eye cracks as Owen shifts and he lets the chair fall back to four legs.

"What'd they do to my raptors?" His voice is raspy, his throat dry and painful and he coughs.

"Why Barry, thanks for dragging my ass out of a raptor pen at great risk to life and limb. I am so glad to be alive and mostly in one piece and I owe you a dinner and a lot of beer."

"Barry…"

"Nothing, Grady, they're fine. No shocking, no shooting." He hands Owen a cup of water, watching his friend sip it slowly, the relief on his face as it soothes his aching throat.

"How am I not being digested?"

"Do you remember when I told you about my wolves?"

He does. Barry had followed the same wolf pack for years, documenting each member carefully. "It's the reason they asked you onto the project. They think raptor pack structure is very similar to wolves."

"There's been ample evidence to support that theory, over the years." Barry leans forward. "There was a member of the pack, a beta, who got clipped in the jaw by an elk during a hunt. It cracked the bone, his face was a mess. We sedated him and set it as best we could, but we fully expected the pack to abandon him, or eat him."

"They didn't." It's not a question.

"No, they didn't. When he was waking up, they closed ranks, protected him. And for weeks we watched them bring him food. Regurgitated it like they do for weaning pups, so it was easy to eat. He healed. His jaw was never the same, but he healed, and he lived a long time after." Owen's quiet, thinking it over. Barry continues. "Initially we thought it was uncommon, but there are records. A lot of records. Wolves who should have died from broken bones or illness that are alive, thriving. Owen, when you fell in that paddock I was sure all the theories were going to be wrong, that you'd be easy pickings for the pack and they wouldn't even hesitate. But they didn't eat you. They closed ranks like you were a packmate, protected you from a perceived threat to your safety." He smiled. "I almost lost a limb dragging you out. Blue wasn't going to let us take you without a fight, and not because you were food. Because you were pack, because they protected you like one of their own."

Owen's mouth is hanging open. He shuts it, swallows. They've argued before about the significance of his bond with the pack, but they never suspected anything like this. It's a whole level of significance they've never considered, never thought possible. "Damn," is all he can say.

"Damn indeed." Barry leans his chair back again, replacing his feet at the bottom of the bed, careful of Owen's casted leg. "The keepers said they're not eating well, pacing, irritable. They keep attacking the gate we dragged you out of, anytime anyone gets near it." Barry sighs. "They're reacting to your absence the same way they would to a bonded packmate."

Owen frowns. "I've been gone before, though. They never respond violently."

"Last time they saw you you were injured, dying. Your heart stopped on the way here. You lost a lot of blood. They're worried about you."

It's a sobering thought. They know raptors are intelligent, that they form emotional attachments and value family bonds. He's spoken to Alan Grant about his experience with raptors both in the original park and at the B-site and the stories corroborate the theories. But they've never seen it apply to a _human._ Then again, no one's ever tried to do what he does before. They're breaking new ground with this research project.

"Damn," he says again, still at a loss for words. But there's a tight feeling in his gut that isn't unpleasant. It's hope, excitement. Progress.

He signs himself out AMA the next morning, ignoring Barry's disapproval. The ride back to the compound leaves him white as a sheet and shaking, but his stubborn streak propels him onward. He locates the security team that witnessed the incident and is relieved not to find any of Hoskins' moles among them. They all readily agree not to divulge what happened. Owen and Barry agree not to put it in any of their reports. They both know what Hoskins wants to do with the raptors. He can't know the kind of bond they have with their trainer. It'll only spell bad news.

Their cover story is feeble, but it'll hold up to moderate investigation. Officially, Owen was barely-conscious but able to crawl to the gate while the raptors were stunned by the security team (because Hoskins also isn't aware that Owen has a habit of sending the detail away against his orders). Barry was able to get him out under the gate without incident. That's the story they stick to, and if Hoskins is suspicious he doesn't press.

The first time he's allowed back on site he's still in a cast, still hurting, but better. The raptors are milling about in the back of the enclosure but run for the gate when they sense movement. Blue smashes her nose against the steel mesh, nostrils flaring as she breathes in his scent and he smiles. "I'm here, girl. Not going anywhere, I promise." And slowly, carefully, he reaches out.

She draws her lip back when his fingers brush her snout, but stills as he scratches, and a deep rumble like a purr hums in her chest.

There's a crunch of gravel as Barry approaches and the spell is broken; snapping at his fingers almost playfully, Blue calls the others and they disappear back into the brush.

"She's pulling her punches. You still have all your fingers."

Owen wiggles his hand, grinning like a kid on Christmas. "Did you _see that?!"_ His heart is pounding, adrenaline coursing through him. He's almost vibrating.

Barry laughs, amazed, a little terrified, and more than a little jealous. Owen's excited, but beneath the flush on his cheeks he's pale and his limbs are shaking from more than just the adrenaline. "Come on," Barry says quietly. "If Ms. Dearing catches you here for too long she'll have you forcibly re-admitted."

"She'd love that. She's still punishing me for that bad date," he replies softly, but he takes Barry's arm and lets the other man drag him home.


End file.
